


desiderium, lost

by atlasian



Series: desiderium, lost [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Bisexual Dean Winchester, Canon Compliant, Coda, Dean Winchester is Bad at Feelings, Drunk Castiel (Supernatural), Drunk Dean Winchester, Emotionally Hurt Castiel (Supernatural), First Kiss, Gay Panic, Getting Together, HEA, Internalized Homophobia, Jealousy, M/M, Mutual Pining, Sad Dean Winchester, Season 15, Season/Series 15 Spoilers, Supportive Sam Winchester, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Well in terms of their relationship, it'll all be okay in the end though, relationship-focused rather than super plotty, some fluff but a lot of dean hating himself, there's still chuck to deal with but we'll think about that later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:01:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21707902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atlasian/pseuds/atlasian
Summary: Castiel confesses, Dean capsizes from the weight of it, Castiel ‘moves on’ — though, not really.“Cas,” he says again, taking a step forward, “we’d like you to stay. I’d like you to stay,” and with some strength that he’s not mustered up in awhile, he adds, “please.” It feels like he’s leapt off a cliff.Cas, for his part, looks about as stunned as Dean feels over what he’s managed to express. He, likely as much as Dean, plausibly anticipated a much colder and detached parting. Like last time.Well, fuck it, Dean’s not going to keep silent and brood like every goddamn time he felt something in his life. The world is falling apart, again, and they need each other.“We’re better together,” Dean says quietly.
Relationships: Castiel & Dean Winchester, Castiel & Sam Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester
Series: desiderium, lost [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1579720
Comments: 54
Kudos: 244





	1. The Rise & Collapse

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to anyone who takes the time to read my first work, or even just clicking on it and saying nah, not for me. I'd really appreciate any feedback, constructive or otherwise! I hope you enjoy :)

“Are you—” Dean averts his eyes from Cas’ now perpetually solemn face. It adds a little too much hurt to his already steadily growing pile, knowing neither of them have smiled at each other in entirely too long. “Are you back now?” he asks.

“I believe my current occupancy of your bunker necessitates that I am, indeed, back.” 

Dean’s lips twitches at that. He has to clamp down his teeth to curb the amused grin. “No, man, I mean,” he finally looks at him, trying, and probably failing, to ensure his eyes aren’t so very pleading, “Are you back? You staying tonight? There’s—um—we’ve got a room for you if you want some—shut-eye. Or something.”

“I don’t sleep,” Cas reminds him dryly. “It’s as if you’ve not listened to me the last couple hundred times.”

“Cas,” Dean intones, and God, Chuck, whatever, it feels so good to say Cas’ name again, “I’m listening now.”

He can’t say he’s sorry for the last time they’ve talked on the phone when he said naught more than he’d said. He can’t even say sorry for the last time their eyes met in person and Cas left without Dean asking him to not go. All these words, all the regrets, they catch in his throat, and all he can do is say that he’ll listen now. Cas had tried to talk to him, and he was fair in reminding Dean that Dean hadn’t listened. Hadn’t even looked him. Cas isn’t dead to him though, he could never be, and now, the least Dean can do at is look at him. Listen.

“Cas,” he says again, taking a step forward, “we’d like you to stay. I’d like you to stay,” and with some strength that he’s not mustered up in awhile, he adds, “please.” It feels like he’s leapt off a cliff.

Cas, for his part, looks about as stunned as Dean feels over what he’s managed to express. He, likely as much as Dean, plausibly anticipated a much colder and detached parting. Like last time. 

Well, fuck it, Dean’s not just going to keep silent and brood like every goddamn time he felt something in his life. The world is falling apart, again, and they need each other.

“We’re better together,” Dean says quietly, “remember?” He offers Cas a small smile, a peace token. His heart hammers in his chest as he hopes against hope that Cas accepts it.

“I don’t have any things to put away,” Cas says faintly, but he’s smiling. It’s timid, even feeble, but it’s close enough of an expression that makes something inside Dean twitch and glow.

They’re finally looking at each other properly. He’s finally able to, yet again, grip to the blue in Cas’ eyes like it’s a lifeline.

“Could you show me to my…room?”

“Hello, Dean.”

“Jesus, fuck!” Dean’s coffee topples over its rim as he jumps about a foot. His hand had flown to fumble for his gun in his surprise before he realised he was only in a t-shirt, flannel pants, and a bathrobe. “What the fuck did I say about doing that? I could have shot you!” he shouts.

It’s more trivial annoyance than he’s felt in awhile during the drinking, the apathy, and the anger of the past few months. He relishes it a little.

“I guess we both have trouble listening sometimes,” Cas remarks lightly with a smile as he shoulders past Dean towards the fridge. He’s jibing at him like they’re friends. Dean doesn’t fight the stupid grin that appears.

“Dean, it seems you are fully stocked up on alcoholic beverages and condiments, but no…actual…ingredients or food.” 

“Ketchup is an ingredient,” he argues dazedly.

“Hmm,” Cas hums, lifting his head away from the cold shelves of the fridge with a curious expression. “Do you often have a beer paired with ketchup for breakfast? I don’t think that sounds incredibly appetising,” he teases.

Today has begun so normally and domestically that Dean is starting to grow in anxiety, waiting for the other shoe—or bomb—to drop.

“I—um—I’ve not eaten—properly—in awhile,” he stumbles through his confession. Cas starts to look troubled, so Dean ploughs on quickly before this discussion can snowball into something about how badly he’s been doing. “Sammy keeps some cereal in the cabinets if you’re hungry. Or I can get takeout. We could go to a diner?”

It’s a little embarrassing how excited the idea of a back-to-basics practice is getting him. He hopes it doesn’t show too much in his tone.

“Since when did you eat?” he blurts out, interest hitting him and slowly rising into a stream of panic. “Fuck, when did you start getting hungry? Are you—” he stops himself before he asks if Cas is okay, because he’s not a friggin’ girl and they’re not about to braid each other’s hair while they talk about feelings or some shit.

“My powers have been failing. I’m not sleeping yet, but I am feeling…tired sometimes. Hungry. Sometimes my back aches,” Cas says wryly.

“Yeah, welcome to your forties,” Dean scoffs, trying to not think about Cas being tired, and hungry, and aching, and human. “You’re looking a little grey there too, buddy,” he says, waving at his own hair and jerking his chin at Cas, making light of it, making this easier somehow.

“My vessel, I think, is getting…older,” Cas muses. “I don’t mind it too much, aside from the constant need to relieve myself or when my knees start to burn when I run.” He glances down at his body in grimace.

“Not your vessel, man, you,” Dean says, getting Cas’ attention away from his annoyed observation over his knees. “Jimmy’s long gone. It’s just you in there. Your body is you. Sometimes it sucks, but there’s good things you’ll feel now too. Food, and um—you know—” Dean wonders why it’s starting to feel weird to talk about sex with Cas. 

Cas smiles. “Yes. Food. Let’s go get some. We should visit a grocery store. There is one I frequented around here awhile back where the boy is so frightened of me, he offers me a free pie every time I visit.”

“You—what?” Dean laughs, mind being lifted further from his dark thoughts.

“You were upset with me over the angel tablet. I tried to make it up to you by purchasing some of those eastern-asian magazines you enjoy and some pie. The boy ran out of pie that time and I may have…gotten somewhat aggressive,” Cas explains, unravelling with some shyness towards the end.

“God,” Dean shakes his head, his cheeks aching from grinning. He’d forgotten how it felt to grin for a little time. “You’re so friggin’ dumb, man,” he chuckles affectionately.

Cas huffs, indignant. It’s cute. “I was trying to be a helpful friend.”

“Alright. Thanks, then. Friend,” Dean says, amused. “Let’s go to a diner,” he announces, “Two dudes grocery shopping together is a little gay. I don’t judge, but that shit’s not really for me.”

He claps Cas on the back as he passes him. His hand lingers for a second too long, relishing, but he doesn’t think too much about it. The same way he doesn’t think too much about how things are feeling okay again and it’s only going to blow up in his face soon.

There’s something he knows is quivering below the surface, all wrapped up in telling Cas that Cas is the thing that goes wrong, telling Cas to answer his goddamn messages and nothing else, him letting Cas leave, them not talking about it, him asking Cas about Sam but not Cas himself, Sammy, his baby brother, who he’s supposed to look after and he’s failing spectacularly at that again, God being back in the game again, losing mom again, Jack, Charlie, Kevin, Bobby, Jo, Ellen, every goddamn person he couldn’t protect, and now the world is coming to an end again—and—and fuck. They’re going to go eat pancakes and bacon.

“I’m gonna get dressed. You’ll…wait here?” Dean asks to a suddenly bewildered looking Cas.

“Um—yes—I…I’ll wait here. For you.”

“Alright, weirdo,” Dean snorts.

“That waitress though,” Dean whistles as they cross the door back into the bunker. “Did you see the way she kept looking at us? Bending over like that. We probably could have tag-teamed if we wanted.”

“I don’t believe it was wise for you to drink alcohol along with your breakfast,” Cas grumbles, “or objectify women like that even if you are feeling tipsy. You’re better than that.”

“I’m not better than anything,” Dean says, annoyed, “and, I had, like, three beers, maximum. It takes a hell lot more than that to take a tank like me anywhere close to tipsy.” As if cosmic intervention had it out for him—which just about explains everything over the past forty or so years—he misses a step down the stairs and almost plants head-first into the grimy floorboard.

Cas catches his arm tight though. Saves him from the plummet.

“Always gripping me tight and raising me from perdition,” Dean mutters, half-amused, half-irritated, as he’s steadily lifted to his feet.

When Dean looks back to his saviour, Cas has his head tilted in the sweet, novice-human kind of way that reminds Dean of ten years previous. He’s looking at Dean with a mixture of curiosity and tenderness, something of the latter making him feel a dozen different kinds of uncomfortable.

“You remember our first exchange very well,” Cas murmurs, and Dean’s wondering if it’s a question or what, but then he realises Cas’ grip on his bicep has loosened, yet still touching, cradling. Every other thought sort of goes out the window.

“I remember when I first gazed at your soul,” Cas continues, lips lifting into a fond smile. His palm drifts from Dean’s arm towards his chest and he presses down on where Dean’s heart is, firmly but gently. It was getting very weird very quickly. Dean’s never felt so nauseous and delighted. “It glows. It’s beautiful. I wish I could still see it as clearly as I did then, even through the fire and sulphur and brimstone.”

Dean wonders whether his soul burned to Cas as brightly as the blue of Cas’ eyes and the fullness of his lips and the gumminess of his big grins and the comfort of his embrace and—

“Cas,” Dean chokes, “you can’t—” but he wants, “you can’t just say shit like that, man,” he manages through strained, uncomfortable laughter. “It’s too fucking much.”

They’re standing far too close, and when Cas’ hand jerks away from him as well as his backtracking steps, away, further away, Dean wishes he’d kept his mouth shut.

“I apologise,” Cas says robotically, “I didn’t mean to make you ill at ease. Personal space. I get it.”

“Cas—”

“Cas!” Sam exclaims, barrelling through the door like the interrupting moose that he’s always been. Dean curses beneath his breath and shuffles further away from Cas.

“You’re still here,” Sam says with some relief, getting closer to Cas and engulfing him into a hug. His hand pats Cas a couple times on the back before he releases him. Dean notices with some trouble that Sam’s hugs are a little different to Dean’s when it comes to Castiel, angel of the Lord. It’s very much less like he’s clutching on to oxygen, for breath, for life.

“I’m still here.” Cas smiles.

Dean also seems to be the only one that can tell when it’s done out of learnt politeness. He is, however, jealous that despite his falsified smile, Cas does seem genuinely pleased to see Sam, untethered by the webbings of hurt and tension and suppressed strife. Nothing like when he first ran into Dean again after…everything.

“I’m a little sleepy from breakfast. I’m going to go lie down, if that’s alright,” Cas announces, giving Sam another smile, but not Dean.

“You’re sleeping now?” Sam asks, brows knitted in concern.

“No, not yet. Perhaps today will be the day though,” Cas answers with wryness. “I must admit, of all the human things I did miss, sleeping is one of them. It’s nice to be able to…forget and rest for a period of time each day.”

Sam’s distress doesn’t ebb away. “Are you becoming human again?”

“Heaven is dying, I believe…or the smudge of grace returned to me from Metatron is no longer viable to keep me strong. Whichever the case, I am falling. My powers, they…they’ve been fading, weakening. It’s likely I will become fully human soon.”

“Oh, Cas,” Sam says sympathetically. His hand clasps onto Cas’ shoulder. “We’re going to fight this together. Your falling, Chuck, everything else the world has to throw at us.” The way they touch also isn’t the same, Dean thinks.

He also thinks glumly that maybe he should just leave the room, leave them to their easy friendship, easy discussions of feelings, easy everything. Neither would probably notice if he did just get the fuck out of here.

“Get some rest. We’ll talk more later,” Sam says, “You’re here permanently now, right?”

Awkwardness leaks into the room as soon as those words are released. Cas shifts his eyes to Dean, who shifts his eyes away, and now they’re both shuffling awkwardly on their feet, looking anywhere but at each other

“Didn’t realise that was a loaded question,” Sam says, huffing an awkward and stilted laugh. “I’m going on a supply run to get Eileen some clothes, food, and um—lady things. She’s still resting a lot too. Falling angels and people back from the dead, am I right?” He’s blabbering now, rubbing his neck. “Must just be another Thursday, I guess.”

Cas is still locked away in his room, probably back to avoiding Dean. Oh, well. The few hours this morning, cruised through the river of their denial, it was a good run. He supposes now they’re back to the avoidances, and tension, and uncomfortable chats that will occur when they accidentally run into each other in the hallway.

Sam returns some time in the evening, arms overflowing with bags of food and clothes and more things than any human woman Eileen’s size would need. Dean’s nursing his fifth or sixth beer. When their eyes catch, they both make disapproving faces at each other. 

“Overkill, much?”

“If you’re talking about your alcohol consumption, then yes,” Sam agrees snootily, striding past Dean with his nose upturned like he’s the Queen of fucking England.

“Bitch,” Dean mutters, necking his beer in petty protest.

“I heard that, jerk!” He calls loudly as he bumbles down the hallway, juggling his multiple sacks of goods that, Dean would like to reiterate, is ambitious for even a Winchester that size to physically transport. The kid is acting like a lovesick teenager with all this gift-giving ritual crap and it makes Dean chuckle under his breath with a degree of fondness.

“What are we laughing at?” Cas asks pleasantly, popping out of nowhere yet again. It amazes Dean how he can still do that the human ways, without his wings and disapparating mojo. God, he had listened in on to too much of Sam and Charlie’s Harry Potter references.

The pang of Charlie hits again, and it’s a little worse when he’s a bit drunk, so he struggles to hide the frown that crawls onto his face.

“And now you’re sad.” Cas sits down opposite Dean at the table where he’s littered all his empty bottles, and looks at Dean with pity. Dean despises that look. “What’s wrong?”

“Wouldn’t the better question be what isn’t?” He laughs humourlessly. “Are we talking again now?” The beer makes him a little braver. Enough to at least confront it. “Or are we doing a thing where we go between realising there’s a mountain of shit between us and ignoring it. As if we’re friends again.”

“We are friends, Dean,” Cas says seriously. His arm reaches out over the table, like he’s reaching for Dean, but he stops halfway there and pulls back. Dean wishes he hadn’t. Dean wishes he never fucking said anything about personal space at all.

“Why do you give a shit?” he demands angrily instead. “It’s not like I’ve been raking in any best friend of the year awards lately. Why are you sitting here, throwing me a fucking pity party as if the ones I throw for myself aren’t enough? Why did you stay when I asked you to? Why didn’t you just punch me in the face and walk out again? Why did we get breakfast, and why did you tell me my soul was beautiful or whatever that weird fucking thing was at the staircase? Why aren’t you fucking livid with me? Why don’t you hate me?”

“Because I’m in love with you,” Cas says straightforwardly, calm and cool like they’re discussing nothing more rousing than the weather.

Dean’s brain short-circuits. He’s drunk. He’s heard wrong. It must be. His heart jumps and his mouth runs dry and he’s shaking his head like it’s possible to shake something in his mind loose.  
Nothing shakes loose except an exhilaration that’s too crushed by the panic and anger to let breathe. All he feels now is sickness.

“Fuck. Fuck.” Dean runs a trembling head through his hair. He turns pointedly away from Cas, stands from his chair, knocking it over in his rush to get up, and stumbles away at least a few feet, shouting again. “Fuck!”

“Does it really bother you that much?” Then, humourlessly, like he knows this reaction was inevitable, Cas tacks on dryly, “Did you not know?”

“I thought, maybe—we—I never—“ Dean inhales sharply and holds his breath for the few second that it takes for him to gather his thoughts.

Cas has his hands clasped on the table, waiting for Dean patiently. Always fucking waiting in the wings for Dean.

“Why would you tell me?” Dean eventually yells, “Why the hell would you say this now? Now? We don’t have time to deal with something like this! We’ve not even dealt with the million other things going on with us before. And then there’s the world decaying all around us. There’s Sammy. Now it’s—it’s another thing now. The biggest fucking thing between us now, I’d say! Why would you say it? You know I can’t. We can’t. I’m not—I’m not—” Every part of his body, even his organs, feel like they’re trembling. “I’m not even fucking gay, Cas.”

“Okay,” he replies, frowning. “I’m sorry. You asked some questions and I thought it would be most efficient to give you the one answer that fits all. I never expected you to reciprocate.”

Dean laughs at him cruelly. “You know, I was working myself up to apologise to you for that stupid fucking thing I said, but maybe I was right. You always seem to have a way of making things go wrong.”

Cas’ composure crumbles instantly, and the look he gives Dean is the same one as the last time Dean had said that same fucking thing, but tenfold. This time, everything hurts more. Dean didn’t think that would be possible.

Maybe it’s because he’s a little drunk, his emotions are riding high, and it's spilling over regardless of Dean’s desire to cap it. Maybe it’s because he can’t go through it again, but this time, he manages to backtrack.

He stumbles towards Cas, who has gotten out his seat too, face twisted in pain, and is slowly backing away. “Cas,” he calls, “Cas, don’t go. I’m so—I didn’t mean it.” Then, with a deep breath, he says again what he said yesterday. “Please stay.”

“It appears I will only make you uncomfortable with my…feelings if I do.”

“No, no,” Dean shakes his head, “It’s not—I’m not—it’s just a lot, okay? But we can get over it. We all need to stick together right now.” He knows he’s being too sentimental, eyes feeling wet, but he doesn’t care much right now. “We can get over it,” he repeats, “You can get over it, right? You’re just confused because of our profound bond or whatever you called it. It’s not the same as being in love with someone, man. You need to get over it."

“I need to get over it,” Cas echoes. Dean can’t read his now schooled expression and tone. It terrifies him slightly.

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “You need to fucking get over it.” 

The next few days are hell, and Dean’s not exaggerating, because he’s literally been and the only difference is that Hell is warmer. Well, that, and the physical torture. Mentally, however, Dean is wrecked. He’s drinking more every day, he’s sleeping less, and when he does, he’d be lucky if the alcohol makes him pass out so thoroughly that his nightmares don’t make an appearance.

When he’s sober, he’s hungover. When he’s drunk, he agonises over the words Cas said. He can’t decide between what he’d prefer; for Cas to have been confused over what in love means, or for it to all be…real.

He probably should have just let Cas go if he’d wanted to go, because having him gone couldn’t be any worse than having him here but...gone.

Dean barely sees him, though he does hear him talking in murmured whispers with Sam and Eileen around the bunker, hears him in the shower, hears him pottering about in his room, hears him humming to himself as he makes breakfast.

Apparently him and Sam visited the grocery store together. Dean’s not bitter about that at all.

For Dean, his rule of thumb tends to be that if he smells bacon, he drifts to it like he’s in some Disney animation where the character floats towards the mist of pie. Lately, when he smells bacon, he knows it’s Cas in the kitchen and it’s a signal to avoid drifting to the source of the smell because another thing that’s worse than Cas being gone is when he does see Cas, and Cas looks right through him as if he’s a ghost.

Besides the cursory nod of acknowledgment and quiet hello and good morning, he doesn’t get anything else from Cas. He misses hello, dean. He doesn’t even get that anymore. He doesn’t get any smiles either. Maybe Cas just doesn’t smile anymore, whether Dean is there or not. Maybe Dean broke him. Dean tends to do that to the things he cares about.

It’s about Week Two into their mutual evasion of each other when Sam, recently oblivious to any person but Eileen, notices.

“I’ve been a shitty brother,” Sam declares one night when they’re watching TV, enjoying a beer each. For Sam, it’s to unwind at the end of another long day of research. For Dean, it’s to get through the night.

“What reason today are the Winchester brothers hating themselves for?” Dean jokes.

“I don’t hate myself,” Sam says gently, “but I do hate that I’ve not been a good brother to you lately. Not even a good friend.” He takes a swig of his drink—Dean realises it’s not even beer, but pear cider today, something Sam bought for Eileen. “I’ve been all caught up in making sure she’s real, you know? That she’s really back. That I can hold her, and laugh with her, and read up on cases with her. And with everything else going on, with Cas being back and falling as well, I guess I started to turn a blind eye to you. I’m sorry.” Because of course, Sam has no trouble saying the words I’m sorry.

Dean hates this. He hates this touchy-feely crap, especially when he knows where it’s going.

“You’re drinking a lot more. You’re not talking to Cas. You camp out in your room like that and the bathroom is the only place you’re allowed to be. What’s going on, Dean?”

Fuck it. At least this conversation can just be over once he says it. “Cas told me he loved me.”

“Oh,” Sam says, “and?”

“What the fuck do you mean, and? I told him to get the fuck over it,” Dean replies angrily, offended that Sam would even need to ask.

He also doesn’t understand why Sam looks angry too now. “What the hell is wrong with you, Dean?”

“Me? What’s wrong with me?” His voice raises and he’s shaking his head in frustration. “He’s the one who dropped this—this unnecessary bomb on top of everything else we have to deal with right now. He’s the one that fucked up our friendship. He’s an angel, Sam. He probably doesn’t even know what it means.”

“Sometimes I forget what an asshole you can be,” Sam mutters, looking away and training his eyes on the TV. “He’s been living like a human for ten-something years now. He’s even been human. He knows what love means, Dean. He’s told us he loved us before.”

“This is different. This is—this is fucking gay as shit,” Dean snaps.

“Is that your problem?” Sam demands. “That it’s gay? Shit, are you homophobic?”

“Oh my God,” Dean rubs a hand down his face. “Of course I’m not! I just—I’m not that way.”

Sam snorts, as if the idea was laughable. “I’ve seen you check out guys’ asses, Dean, and Doctor Sexy? You’re bisexual, man.”

Dean splutters. “What—I—no—it’s not—I’m not—”

“And Cas? You look at Cas like he hung the friggin’ moon. Don’t get me started on all the gazing you two do.”

“Sam. Stop.”

“What? What’s the problem? I don’t care, mom wouldn’t have cared, dad—well, maybe he would a bit, but he’s dead now so who cares? Who cares except you, Dean?” Sam needles, facing him once more, earnest. “It’s okay to be who you are. Even while the world is burning down around us. Let’s clutch at whatever happiness we can, right? What’s the point in punishing ourselves? God does it enough for us.”

“Sam,” Dean says again, voice cracking. “I’m not ready to think about it. I’m not ready to let myself want it. Okay? Cas, he’s—I just can’t. I don’t even know if it’s real.” Cas’ words echoes in his head. That they are real. Dean wishes it was enough to make him believe it.

Sam concedes tentatively, patting Dean on the back and letting him know for the gazillionth time that he’s here for him. That if he ever needed to talk.

The night ends with Eileen entering to let them know she’s found a standard salt-and-burn case, twenty miles south. It’s a nice night for a drive. Is Dean ready to hunt again?

No, he responds immediately. He isn’t ready to do anything again. Not right now.

Eileen and Sam share a loaded look, and she nods at him subtly, like she understands. They seem to have what Dean and Cas have, but luckily, well—uncomplicated.

It isn’t until they both slam the door of the bunker shut behind them that Dean realises he’s alone with Cas for the first time in two weeks.

“Shit,” he curses beneath his breath.

He considers just sleeping here, no sense risking an awkward bump-in with Cas as he navigates the hallway towards his room. The issue is moot when after a few more minutes of drinking and pondering, Cas enters the room.

Dean swivels his head back towards the door he’s come through and his heart skips stupidly when he catches Cas’ eyes. He’s not looked into them for far too long.

“Hey,” Dean says weakly. “You wanna watch some TV?”

Cas looks caught in headlights. “I thought everyone left for a hunt,” he replies, words a little stunted. “I was invited, but I…declined.” Dean knows what that means. Cas thought he’d have to be in the same car as Dean, around Dean, so he chose to stay behind. Unfortunately for them, Dean is still here.

“I can leave,” he says, sitting up from his couch and gathering the empty bottles to put in the trash. When he looks up, Cas is standing next to him.

“No, I—this is your place. You were already watching something. You should stay,” he says, resting a hand on Dean’s shoulder to nudge him back down towards the couch. It’s a functional touch, but Dean savours it like a starving man chewing at stale breadcrumbs.

“You wanna sit down too?” he asks shakily, testing the waters and feeling like he’s about to be drowned for it. “I can scoot over.”

Cas smiles, and even though it’s the clipped one he offers people out of civility, Dean thinks for a second that this is it, they’re going to move back towards whatever normalcy they held onto before.

Then Cas shakes his head. “Thank you, but I only came to gather the clothes Sam said he’d set aside for me. I think he didn’t want me going into his bedroom without supervision. I’ve been known to pick up the human things I find interesting and put them back where they don’t belong. He lost his shaving foam and still blames me for it. I swear I put it back in his laundry hamper, where all the bathroom things go,” he babbles.

“Clothes?” Dean asks dumbly. What a pair they are.

“Yes, I believe it was you that said my ‘look’” he does finger quotes and it makes Dean smile, “is comparable to that of a holy tax accountant.” He grimaces. “Or a third-tier agent.”

“I was just joking around,” Dean says, “you look—um—fine. You look fine to me.” His eyes squeezes shut, and he curses inwardly at his choice of verbiage.

“Thank you, but for tonight I would like to look a little better than fine.”

“What’s tonight?” Dean asks, feeling his anxiety build.

“I’m going out.”

“That’s why you’re borrowing Sam’s clothes? You’re going out? Out where?” He realises he’s starting to sound like a nagging wife but he can’t seem to stop himself.

“There’s a bar a couple miles outside town that I believe you and Sam have frequented. I’m getting an Uber,” Cas says, sounding a little proud of himself. It’s sweet, but Dean feels so huffy that he has no chance to enjoy Cas’ glee in doing human things.

“Why the fuck are you going to a bar by yourself?” he snaps a little too aggressively.

Cas recoils at Dean’s tone, but composes himself just as quickly. He stands a little taller. “I believe you often partake in the same activity enough to know why I’d be going to a bar by myself.”

Dean thinks he’s going to throw up. “You trying to get laid tonight? You’re gonna go out and fuck someone?” he hisses.  
“I wouldn’t phrase it so crudely,” Cas sniffs, “but essentially, yes, I suppose. I’m becoming human now. I may as well join in with your mating rituals.”

“Why—why would you—” Dean’s voice cracks and he has to cough to cover it up. “Why would you want that?” he asks, his anger bleeding out into raw hurt.

“I enjoyed sex with April before she stabbed me and tried to kill me. Perhaps tonight will go better. Less stabbing, less attempted murder.”

“Cas,” Dean calls, before Cas can exit with Sam’s clothes piled in his arms. He almost pleads with him to not do this. Instead, he says, “Sam’s shirt on you will just make you look like you’re wearing a friggin’ dress. Take something of mine.”

“No, thank you,” Cas replies coolly. “I think I’ll be fine.”

Dean laughs once Cas leaves. At least one of them will be.

It’s two a.m when his phone rings, Cas’ caller ID lighting up the screen. Dean fumbles out of bed and smacks onto the floor in his hurried bid to get to the phone.

“Cas? Hello? You okay?”

“Um—hi,” replies a man’s voice who is decidedly not Cas. “I found your boyfriend’s phone on him after he went behind the bar and threw up everywhere. He’s pretty drunk, man. You should probably come get him.”

His sleep-addled brain clicks awake in an instant. “Is he okay?” Dean asks, already putting on his jeans. “And…er…boyfriend?”

“Yeah, yeah, he’s slumped over in a booth, but the barmaid’s giving him lots of water. Wait, you are Dean, right? He’s been talking about you all night, I just assumed—and your number is listed on his favourite contacts—I—I’m sorry if you’re not—is there someone else I can call or…?”

“No, no, I…” He’s grabbed his keys and is halfway out the door when he pauses and takes a deep breath in preparation for the obscenely stupid thing he’s about to say. “I am. His boyfriend.” Dean feels his stomach flutter, and even though he feels a rising sickness along with it, he’s still smiling tentatively to himself when slides into Baby, revving her up.


	2. Too Close

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Heya Cas.” This voice is familiar. This voice is the one he could listen to until the end of the world. It’s cheerful right now, a touch false in said cheer, but it’s still layered in kindness and affection and a bit gruff and—Dean.
> 
> “Dean is here,” he hears himself mutter stupidly, then shakes his head, because Dean couldn’t be here. Why is Dean here?
> 
> “Why are you here?” he asks, swaying side to side from his sitting position. The bar is spinning again and he clenches his hands on the table’s edge to steady himself.
> 
> Dean slides in next to him and places a hand on his shoulder, righting Castiel against his side. He’s far too close. He’s so close now, pressed up next to Castiel, that he wants to cry in relief.
> 
> “I’m here to take you home,” Dean murmurs next to his ear. Castiel smiles, and he’s sure it’s a goofy one because he’s too drunk to care. He’s too inebriated to quell his desire to be near Dean.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this is my fault. It's going to be three chapters now because I couldn't help myself. I wanted to explore Cas' character from his perspective too, but I also feel like there's some unfinished business with Dean resolving his feelings about himself and about Cas. So here we go, Chapter 2, and in Chapter 3 we will be going back to Dean. Hopefully, I'll be able to wrap it up there and give these two the happy ending they deserve.
> 
> Thank you to everyone that's read and commented and given me a Kudos. It's so nice to hear your feedback. Thank you, thank you!

“Hey, hey,” an unfamiliar voice nudges through Castiel’s sleepy brain. There’s also a hand shaking his shoulder as he fumbles his way back into a fuller consciousness.

He must have fallen half-asleep. He blinks a few times to clear his eyes, but his vision remains blurred and he’s feeling a little dizzy too and oh—he’s still drunk. It reminds him of that time he drank the entirety of the liquor store and he giggles to himself. Back then, he drank because he couldn’t find God. Now he’s drunk and he wishes God never showed up to, as they say, ‘the party.’ There’s nothing he wishes more.

Well, there’s one thing he wishes a little more.

“Your boyfriend’s here,” the voice says, interrupting his mournful musings.

Castiel cocks his head to the side and squints at the man that’s been shaking his shoulder. He puffs an annoyed breath at him.

“Boyfriend?” he asks, voice slurred even contained in that one word. “What are you—” he hiccups, “talking about?”

“The guy you’ve been rambling on about all night? His freckles, his eyes, his soul?” The man before him is teasing him now, he can tell. Even drunk and still not entirely top of his class in ‘people skills’, he doesn’t miss the amused look the man shares with the waitress next to him.

Castiel makes another irritated sound as he lifts himself up from the booth to sit upright. “Dean. I was talking about Dean. Dean isn’t—”

“Heya Cas.” This voice is familiar. This voice is the one he could listen to until the end of the world. It’s cheerful right now, a touch false in said cheer, but it’s still layered in kindness and affection and a bit gruff and—Dean.

“Dean is here,” he hears himself mutter stupidly, then shakes his head, because Dean couldn’t be here. Why is Dean here?

“Why are you here?” he asks, swaying side to side from his sitting position. The bar is spinning again and he clenches his hands on the table’s edge to steady himself.

Dean slides in next to him and places a hand on his shoulder, righting Castiel against his side. He’s far too close. He’s so close now, pressed up next to Castiel, that he wants to cry in relief.

“I’m here to take you home,” Dean murmurs next to his ear. Castiel smiles, and he’s sure it’s a goofy one because he’s too drunk to care. He’s too inebriated to quell his desire to be near Dean.

“Are you okay for us to leave you with your boyfriend now?” The pretty blonde waitress asks. She looks like Dean’s type. Cas grumbles his assent to her and waves both her and the other man away. Then that word clocks at him again.

“Boyfriend?” he repeats to Dean, head tilted in question. “Why do they think you’re my boyfriend?”

“Because I…” Dean flushes and rubs the back of his neck. “I told them I was. Well. They assumed, and I didn’t correct them. Seems easier to go with it than waste time explaining our fucked up history, ya know? What we are to each other.”

Cas nods along understandingly, but his belly fills with nervous flutters and he purses his lips to prevent himself from beaming at the idea. Boyfriend.

Maybe he could find a reason for them to stay a little longer and Dean could keep playing along for the people he already played along for. The thought gets Castiel giddy.

“It’s good to see you smile,” Dean says hesitantly, inspecting his fingernails and avoiding Castiel’s gaze, “but why did you get so drunk, Cas?” His voice isn’t angry like Castiel has come used to expecting. It’s tender. It’s worried. Castiel leans in more, presses further into Dean’s side, until Dean has to lift his arm away and set it behind on Castiel’s shoulders. 

He gives a contented sigh and closes his eyes before answering, “I had read about something called liquid courage. I believed it would have—helped me be…courageous. In pursuing a partner. It seems all it gave me courage to do is maunder nonsensical musings to innocent—” another hiccup. He hates the involuntary myoclonic jerks that humans suffer. “bystanders,” he finishes.

“You didn’t though, right?”

“Didn’t what?”

“Didn’t…find a partner.”

Something in Dean’s fretful tone makes Castiel’s smile gentle from its earlier exuberance.

“Nobody I want to be with like that, it appears.” But you Dean, he stops himself from adding, thanking the part of his brain that hasn’t let go of all his inhibitions quite so fully. Future, sober, and heedful Castiel is not going to be happy with him as it is.

“Come on, let’s get you home.” Dean’s rubbing the side of Castiel’s shoulder that he has one arm around, ushering him out the booth. Castiel follows obediently, always going where Dean calls.

He stumbles and Dean catches him, both arms winding around his waist, and Castiel thinks this is great. He should get drunk and helpless more often as long as Dean is around. He selfishly takes what he can get, leaning again, pressing again, clutching again at Dean’s jacket.

He exhales slowly, eyes drooping again, and he fights it by blinking rapidly. He wants to keep looking at Dean up-close like this. He’s so close. Castiel is so close he can count Dean’s freckles. Unbidden, his hand drifts up and they trace the sprinkle of little hazel patches on Dean’s cheeks.

Surprisingly, Dean laughs with genuine mirth. “What are you doing there, Cas?”

“Pretty,” he hums, dropping his hand and slumping into Dean once more. He doesn’t wait for Dean’s response, because right now, from the side, Dean looks a little stunned. He asks again, “Why are you here?”

“You’ve already asked me that, buddy.”

“No, I mean,” Castiel stops faltering on his feet and Dean pauses with him, one arm still looped around Castiel’s waist to keep him vertical. Castiel also realises that one of his arms has found its way around Dean’s shoulder. Dean’s essentially carrying him out the bar. It’s nice. It feels nice to be taken care of like this, especially after being alone and miserable for so long.

“Why are you here?” Castiel repeats with wonder. “Why are you being nice to me? You’re not usually…nice to me.”

Dean’s looking at him with furrowed brows and Castiel wants to puff a breath and blow away all the hurt that Dean keeps inside, the ones that sometimes creeps onto his face with a sullen glower. He wishes he could heal the inside of Dean the same way he could—or used to—heal the broken arms and busted legs.

Castiel also then belatedly realises that it’s something he said that brought out this expression.

“I’m sorry,” he blurts, “I already forgot what I said, but I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you,” he worries.

It seems to make it worse because now Dean’s casting his eyes upwards, and Castiel knows that he does this when he is trying not to spill tears.

Castiel is the something that always goes wrong.

They’re walking again—stumbling—in the outside now, where the wind cuts sharply and a trickle of rain is dripping down on them. It stays quiet except for the rain. In silence, Dean manoeuvres Castiel to lean against the side of the Impala’s trunk while he opens the passenger seat’s door. He carefully, too gently and carefully, helps Castiel into the seat and pulls the seatbelt around him. Castiel grumpily feels like he doesn’t deserve any of this kindness.

Castiel thinks maybe the alcohol has clogged up too much of his brain and time feels like it’s slowed, but then, no, Dean really is just sitting in the driver’s seat beside him, staring out the window. He’s not moving or putting the keys in the ignition or his foot on the pedal or driving or—

“Dean?”

He doesn’t answer. It’s like he can’t hear Castiel, or like he’s not listening. Again. He’d laugh if it wouldn’t sound so jarring in this tense silence.

“Are we just going to sit here?” Castiel eventually asks, head thunking against the backrest.

“I don’t know why I keep hurting you and everyone else I love,” Dean says quietly. “But you. Mostly you.”

Castiel almost doesn’t hear him. He also doesn’t understand what led to what Dean said. Had Castiel been saying something before? Everything is a little hazy and darkened and whirling right now.

He feels his best course of action is probably just to be honest. “I don’t really understand what’s going on right now, Dean,” he explains.

Dean laughs. That’s good. Then, oh. It registers with Castiel, belatedly again, that this isn’t one of Dean’s good laughs. This is Dean’s ‘everything hurts too much but I don’t want to cry’ laugh.

He reaches out instinctively to touch Dean. It used to be easy like this. He wouldn’t have to think so much if all he wanted to do was to reach out and comfort his friend with touch. He does it now, and maybe they’ve travelled back in time a couple years when Dean trusted him and cared for him and thought of him as a friend, because Dean lets him hold his arm. He doesn’t tense or move away.

They sit like that for a little while, Castiel with one hand on Dean’s arm, like that day at the staircase, and at some point, his hand slides down to rest on top of Dean’s hand.

He’s so shocked he jolts when Dean flips his hand and entwine their fingers together. They’ve never held hands. Not like this. Not so personally, where fingers are interlocked and the grip is so secure and present that it’s unmistakably a very intimate gesture.

“You’re probably not going to remember this so I’ll try to say it again when—if I can, but Cas, I’m—” Dean faces him with a fond but sorrowful expression. “I’m so sorry, Cas. For everything I’ve said, everything I’ve not. For not being even being nice to you. Fuck. It shouldn’t be this hard to not be a dick. I’m so fucking sorry. I know I don’t deserve you—and something else I know now, Cas, is that I…shit…you know, I—”

Castiel wakes up with a headache. He’s not had one since he was last human, and he guesses he’d forgotten how awful they could be. They should call it a head-drilling-screaming-pounding pain. Headache, he scoffs to himself.

The amount of effort it took for him to perform that scoff doubles the brain pain and he groans loudly, dramatically, because he feels like being extra grouchy today. He supposes he fell asleep for the first time in a long time last night, but he’s not woken up feeling well-rested at all. He also feels physically disgusting, like he’s been dragged through mud and sweat and excrement. He needs a shower.

Another groan falls from his parched mouth when he swings his feet to the floor and stands. He palms the wall for support as he putters towards the bathroom, grabbing the towel folded at the foot of his bed along the way.

It’s only when he’s naked and drying himself off from his shower with the towel that he frowns at it with interest. He didn’t have a towel before. He glances at the pool of clothing on the floor that he’d stripped off from earlier. He didn’t have pyjamas before either.

Dean.

Dean had picked him up at the bar. He recalls foggily that they might have held hands, but no. That’s something Dean would definitely consider gay, and he’s made it abundantly clear in the past through the parades of women and outright verbal denials that he’s markedly not.

Castiel thinks he might have been a little too touchy, a little too clingy, a little too obvious last night. He’s already confessed his feelings but it’s obviously not reciprocated, and he’d been doing so well in keeping his distance from Dean so as to not make him uncomfortable.

It’s likely that last night may have thrown a wrench into his distancing efforts.

For the third time this hour, Castiel lets out a loud groan. He’s also most definitely closer than ever to becoming human because he’s never groaned aloud with so much exhausted chagrin when he was a fully fledged angel, unencumbered by human emotions.

Charlie once said to him on a rainy afternoon, when Rowena’s spell-cracking was headed nowhere and Crowley had irritated him so much during a phone call that his brain had checked out, that Castiel’s face had looked so done. Castiel didn’t quite understand how his facial features could combine together to resemble that of a task finished. Or perhaps a well-cooked piece of meat.

Today he understands. Today Castiel feels so done.

As he dresses, slowly and painfully, he grumbles a few more times and wracks his brain for any more embarrassing or life-ruining events that may have transpired last night. He’s surmised as much that Dean had likely carried him into bed, unclothed him, and tucked him under some sheets. Folded a towel for him. Looked after him.

All in all, a pleasing thought that warms Castiel and makes him smile.

He doesn’t remember much. Only glimpses. Being cradled out the bar—a hazy memory he will replay and claw to keep fresh—the collapse into a booth, the vomiting in an alley, a perky young blonde waitress, a man that called Dean his boyfriend. Nothing too terrible, he doesn’t think.

The blanks in his memory is, however, what sets him into slight panic. He sits himself down on the edge of the bed and takes a deep breath, trying to collate memories and details and also trying not to heave all over the wooden floorboards.

Not a minute later, his phone rings with its text-tone. Castiel, with weariness, reaches over and checks his message.

Unknown number.

Last night was good, Castiel. If you’d like some more help getting over that ex of yours, give me a call and we can grab some ‘hot caffeinated beverages’ that you so enjoy. 

It’s followed by a winky face. 

There it is.

Castiel groans for the fourth time. This, he doesn’t remember at all. He’s not even entirely sure if it was a woman or a man that he’d made acquaintance with, and had apparently given out his number so carelessly. Was it that man that helped him after he threw up? That waitress? No, they thought Dean was his boyfriend, not his ex-partner. Someone from earlier on in the night perhaps, where he drunk enough to talk about Dean, drunk enough to talk to a stranger, but not enough to vomit and solicit help from strangers just yet.

He sets the phone aside and decides to ignore the message. It’s nothing even remotely as troubling as the Apocalypse 2.0 or losing Jack, his wings, his grace, and his camaraderie with Dean. This, he could take, with a granule of rock salt.

“Good morning, sunsh—g’morning buddy,” comes Dean’s cheery greeting as he enters the kitchen.

“Oh. Good morning, Dean.”

Castiel contemplates backing out the room, coming up with a quick excuse to retreat to somewhere where Dean isn’t there, but he’s being peered at with such warmth that makes it impossible for him to leave.

Maybe whatever happened last night makes them okay now—or as okay as they can be for the time being. Maybe they can go to the diner again, and Castiel can buy Dean a pie, and they can sit and watch television tonight, like they used to, where they’d take a few hours off from the strain of their lives and responsibilities to the world.

Castiel takes a seat besides Dean at the breakfast bar where Dean once slid him over a beer even though Castiel had refused one. He notes that Dean has a mug of coffee in front him, paired with an overflowing bowl of cereal. No beer with breakfast today.

He returns Dean’s earnest smile, tenfold in joy.

“You want some breakfast?” Dean asks, gesturing at his bowl with his spoon. “I could whip you up some bacon and eggs, maybe some pancakes? Or you can have my cereal. This is already my second bowl,” he explains sheepishly.

Castiel raises a fist to his mouth and tries not to vomit as he lurches forward with another wave of nausea.

“Or—um—yeah, I guess that’d be disgusting. I’ll get you a fresh bowl if cereal’s what you want.”

“No, no,” Castiel says quickly, “it’s just—the idea of any kind of food right now…I…I am not feeling entirely too well.”

“Rough hangover?” Dean jibes, though his face leans closer and he’s inspecting Castiel with concern. “You want an Advil? Some soup, maybe? Might go down you easier."

“Soup…might be good,” Castiel says slowly, trying to breathe deeply to fight his gagging.

Dean’s up in an instant, his breakfast forgotten, and he’s rifling through the cabinets, cans and bottles and jars clinking together as he shoves unwanted items aside. “Chicken and Mushroom any good? Or we have—what is this—plain tomato? Fucking Sam, I bet.” Dean makes an offended face at the latter option which he holds in his right hand, though he brings both over and sets them in front of Castiel to choose.

One hand pressed against the side of his head that’s throbbing, Castiel waves another at the Chicken and Mushroom can. Dean nods approvingly and goes to open and dispense its contents into a bowl, sticking it in the microwave.

“So,” Dean starts as he sits opposite Castiel, and for some reason he’s shifted from easy-going movements to stiffness, “you were pretty drunk, huh? How much do you remember of…last night?”

Castiel chuckles, shaking his head. “Not much, I’m afraid. I suppose I may have made quite a fool of myself. I do apologise if I…overstepped with you in any way. You shouldn’t have had to come pick me up like that. It was irresponsible of me.”

“Nah, man. It’s fine. The amount of times Sam’s had to carry me home from a bar is just…ridiculous. It’s almost a Winchester rite of passage. No big deal.”

Castiel’s eyes widen a fraction but he swiftly collects himself. “Winchester?” he asks weakly, regretting it as soon as he says it. He should have ignored that, not think too much of it.

Dean reddens somewhat too but he’s still smiling at Castiel. “Yeah. Castiel Winchester. Nice ring to it, huh?”

“Yes, I—” Castiel nods, “thank you.”  
“You’re family. You know you are,” Dean coughs and bites his lip and picks at his nail. He’s not looking at Castiel anymore. “You’re our…brother, Cas. Like I said before.”

Right. Of course.

The microwave dings, and Dean leaves his chair like a bat out of hell to go retrieve the soup. He sets it in front of Castiel and still dodging his eyes, he says, “so you said you don’t remember much, but what do you—what do you remember?”

“Bits and pieces,” he says, suddenly glum. He swirls his soup around with his spoon. It doesn’t look very appetising but the first warm slurp down his gullet does settle his stomach somewhat. And because he’s feeling a bit bitter, he adds to tactically annoy Dean, “I felt like we might have held hands?”

Dean doesn’t reply. Castiel may be wrong, but a comment like that, he believes, requires at least some kind of response.

“Did we?” Castiel probes.

Dean inhales deeply and glances up at Castiel, some kind of determination set in his face. Castiel’s seen that look before. It’s the look Dean gives the monsters he’s about to fight.

“Yeah,” he affirms, assertive and unwavering, “we sure did.” Then, to Castiel’s shocked face, he grins at him wolfishly.

Castiel is at a loss for words. He doesn’t know what this is. He doesn’t know how to logic his way out of this. He doesn’t know at all what he’s supposed to do or say next, except his heart is pounding, reminding him how human he is now, and his headache has subsided into a woozier glow.

Luckily, Dean takes the next step for him.

“We’re out of patties, and I’m making burgers tonight. Sam and Eileen got caught up in a storm yesterday, so they won’t be back until later this evening. We can all sit down, and—I dunno—have a family meal I guess.”

“What—” Castiel shakes his head. “What’s—”

“What I’m saying, dipshit, is we should get some supplies for dinner. When you’re done with your soup,” Dean’s voice drops an octave, and he’s been ploughing on so confidently that it’s a noticeable shift when he continues, shyly, “do you want to go buy some groceries? With me?”

“You said that’d be gay,” Castiel says dumbly, not entirely sure why his useless, hungover brain supplied him with that to say.

Dean shrugs. It’s a forced gesture, but he’s obviously trying emulate the nonchalance of it in his heart. “Who cares?”

Castiel smiles at him brightly, abandoning his soup at once as he rises towards the kitchen’s exit. “Let me just get dressed quickly and we’ll go.”

“You’re not going to keep that suit and tie and trench coat on for the supermarket?” Dean asks jovially, leaning on the counter and giving Castiel a goading grin.

“My clothes require laundering the same way my body does now. This attire is smelling…musty. I believe I still have some spare shirts of Sam’s in my room.”

“I was right though,” Dean calls, with Castiel’s foot halfway out the door. “You looked ridiculous last night. Baggy and…just—not right. Take something from my closet.”

Castiel turns back and nods, perhaps a bit too eagerly. “Thank you, Dean.”

“You’re welcome, Cas,” he replies, his eyes crinkling from the upturned stretch of his lips. Castiel wishes he could frame that smile and keep it close to his heart.

They’re already halfway to the Impala when Dean curses at his phone and frustratedly shoves it back into his pocket.

“Phone’s dead,” he grumbles. “You got yours on you? In case Sam or Eileen calls? I don’t want anything happening to them because I’m too stupid to charge my goddamn useless piece of shit phone, or if they’ve been attacked by a monster along the way, or something with Chuck comes up, or even if they get back a little early and we’re not there, and what if they think something’s took us, and—”

“Dean, Dean,” Castiel hushes, placing a calming hand on his shoulder. “You’re spiralling again. I have my phone. We’re okay.”  
Dean sighs, the worry lines of his forehead vanishing. “Okay. Sorry. Just—maybe shoot them a message, let them know we’ll be out for awhile or something. In case.”

Castiel nods his assent, patting his jacket—borrowed from Dean—down. He curses too, a habit he’s sure he’s learnt from Dean.

“Seems like I forgot mine,” he admits with an equally frustrated look that Dean had been sporting earlier.

Rolling his eyes, Dean claps Castiel on the back and they start heading back towards the bunker.

“We make a great pair,” he remarks sarcastically. Nonetheless, there it is again. A sliver of hope that sneaks through his chest, when Dean touches him, when Dean gazes at him, or says something like this—even slightly interpretable as…well. That they could be something more.

When they reach the bunker again, Dean hands Castiel a gun and tells him to keep lookout. “I need to grab some extra cash as well. Just remembered we need to fill up Baby’s tank soon, might as well do it on this run. Where’d you leave your phone?”

“On my dresser. Could you pick me up an extra layer of clothing too? It’s chilly out. I’d like a cardigan if possible.”

Dean rolls his eyes again. “Who the fuck where’s cardigans, Cas?” He doesn’t wait for a reply, already heading down the steps and waving a hand in the air dismissively. “I’ll get you a damn cardigan. Sammy probably keeps one, girly as he is. Or I’ll just get you Eileen’s.” Dean snorts laughter to himself and Castiel huffs, crosses his arms, and waits by the door impatiently, tapping his foot.

When Dean returns, the air between them has changed.

Dean is not so much glaring at him, but he looks detached, angry, and sour. He tosses a jumper at Castiel with far more force than necessary, and it’s balled up, so it hits him square in the chest with some oomph.

“Um…” Castiel glimpses quickly at the ugly green thing Dean’s brought him instead of a cardigan and he frowns. “What’s wrong?”

Dean hurls his phone at him too, so carelessly Castiel fumbles with it and almost drops it.

“Dean,” he says, rising with ire as well now for this unsolicited hostility. “What the fuck?” he swears, surprising even himself with the blasphemous language.

Dean’s unfazed. His jaw tenses, his eyes grow cold. “Thought you said you didn’t meet anyone. Thought you said, nobody you wanted to be with like that.”

“What?” Castiel repeats, utterly perplexed.

“I guess you were just talking bullshit. Last night was all bullshit. Stupid of me, really, taking anything you said last night seriously,” Dean snarls.

Castiel’s head’s spinning, both from his hangover and from the conversation currently taking place. He’s about fifteen different kinds of confused right now.

“Dean,” he intones, “I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about right now. What happened in there?”

“What happened,” Dean spits, “is I went to text Sam on your phone and it seems like you did meet someone after all. Good time last night, I bet.”

Castiel blanches.

“Guessing you did fuck someone. Congratulations. Mission accomplished. You gonna go back for round two tonight? Or are you meeting this chick or dude or whatever for your hot caffeinated beverage?” His tone is toxic, his face even more poisonous, and Castiel flinches at this bitter and dark side of Dean that he wishes he could help gentle.

It’s scarier than any demon he’s ever met, how quickly Dean’s behaviour can turn from something so giving and kind and playful and wondrously childlike to this blackened ugly thing.

“Dean, I didn’t. I’m pretty sure I just talked to some people. I don’t know why you’re getting upset, especially when it’s not really any of your business who I—”

“I’m not upset,” he laughs spitefully, “I’m ecstatic for you! I did tell you to get over it. Remember? I said that. I rejected you, and now you’re free to do whatever. Didn’t realise you’d get over it so quickly but I’m glad you did, man. Now we don’t have to walk on eggshells around each other with your gay fucking feelings for me. It’s fucking fabulous. I always knew you were just confused.”

He pats Castiel on the back, too forcefully, again, and as he works his jaw with restrained rage, he stalks furiously towards the Impala, slip inside, and drives away with a speed that’s at least double the road limit.

Castiel feels his throat close up and the pain of his headache carried downwards into a throbbing heartache.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Back to Dean’s POV next chapter, I think. I’m happy to hear any thoughts and ideas for what comes next, as I’m still juggling a few ideas in how to best conclude this little fic.


	3. desiderium, found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the fallout that follows, and the falling back together of Dean and Castiel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, god. Ok. It's going to be FOUR chapters now, because my need to flesh this out has gone off the rails.
> 
> This one is a little shorter as we will definitely conclude at four, with the last chapter being mostly an epilogue of sorts, where I can tie up some loose ends and give you some fluff to soothe the angst.
> 
> Thank you for everyone that's stuck with me and my story :) I appreciate you all very much!

Three days after ‘the incident’—where Dean has stopped speaking to Cas entirely, bar the occasional grunt of acknowledgement as they walk past each other in the bunker—he finds his loaned clothes freshly laundered and neatly folded, sitting on his dresser.

He scowls at it before pettily swiping his hand across the pile, so that it lands haphazardly on the floor. He kicks it for good measure.

Cas could have burnt the clothes, for all he’d care. It wasn’t like Dean is ever going to wear them again, not now that they have touched Cas’ body. At least Cas didn’t keep them though. At least he had enough decency to realise he shouldn’t be wearing Dean’s things again. 

That Cas knows he isn’t allowed to share in Dean’s possessions anymore sends a sick jolt of satisfaction through him, but also sits uncomfortably and wretchedly in the pit of his stomach.

He needs a drink.

He glances at the clock beside his bedside lamp, sees it’s past noon, so even if Sam does catch him reaching for a beer in the fridge, his pesky disapproval shouldn’t exceed the standard custom between them.

It still sucks that when he walks into the kitchen, both Sam and Eileen are there, sharing sickeningly kind gazes and a bowl of ice cream. Probably that vegan blend of frozen bananas or some disgusting shit like that. He was hoping he could avoid any kind of conversational exchange altogether.

Dean tries to go for the beer surreptitiously, muttering a dismissive ‘hey’ in return to their far friendlier greetings. He doesn’t look at them.

“Dean,” Sam calls just as Dean is almost back out the door.

Dean groans, turning and glaring at his brother. “What?” he snaps.

Eileen winces at the animosity that’s entered the room along with Dean. He almost feels bad. Almost.

“Where are you going with that four-pack?” Sam asks, not even trying to hide the growing censure, the fading pleasantry.

“Last time I checked, it’s the afternoon so if I want a couple of beers, I’m entitled to some,” Dean explains, but then, unable to help himself, acidly adds, “also I’m pretty sure both my parents are dead so you’re sure as shit not one of them. Mind your own fucking business.”

He ignores Sam’s calls of protest, Eileen’s calming hushes to his brother, and barrels out into the hallway—straight into Cas. Solid-bodied, fresh-smelling, wet-looking Cas, in a towel and naught else.

They stare, both equally disoriented and together terrified.

“Um—I’m just—the shower—” Cas gestures randomly backwards with his hand.

“Right,” Dean chokes back. Unconsciously, he wipes one hand down his bathrobe, at the wetness stuck to it from Cas’ damp chest slamming into him.

“Sorry,” Cas mumbles, now looking at his feet.

“You—er—shower now,” Dean states the obvious, unsure why immediately after.

“I’m doing a lot of things now,” Cas admits quietly. “Human…pretty much.”

“Cool.” Cool? Dean needs to get out of here right now. Instead, he blurts, “you know how to shave? I could…I could—”

“Yes. Sam showed me yesterday.”

A rush of displeasure, trickled with envy, is taking over before he can quash it. He’s afraid it will show, so he faces away quickly before Cas can catch onto anything. 

“Why you showerin’ at one in the afternoon?” he grouses, and though it’s directed at Cas, he’s looking down the hallway, unable to meet his eyes, or his pink-flushed cheeks, or his tousled mop of wet hair, a little too endearing and heart-wrenching and—

“I have a date.”

Dean’s head snaps back so fast that he reckons he’s pulled a ligament. “What?”

“I have a date,” Cas simply repeats, as if Dean merely didn’t hear him the first time. As if Dean isn’t being pulled apart inside like a toy for toddlers, parts broken and smashed and separated and torn.

“The winky-face asshole? Was it…that dick you met the night I came and picked you up?” he asks, teeth clenching in anger or anguish—he doesn’t know.

“No,” Cas answers, crossing his arms defiantly.

Bad timing, such bad timing that Dean almost bursts out with a snigger, but he’s never seen Cas’ arms bare before and he realises they look…nice. Like a lot of things about Cas. He’d like to run a hand down one.

Instead, he crosses his arms back and stares Cas down. “So who is it?” he demands.

Cas narrows his eyes at him. He’s not seen the wrathful angel persona directed at him in…awhile. 

“Frankly, I don’t believe I owe you an answer.” Cas’ voice is cold. It makes the room feel cold too.

“Well, fucking fine. Not like I give a shit anyway,” Dean snaps, returning determinedly to his indignant prowl, back to his shitty solace, back to his room.

He drinks the four-pack in under an hour. He listens to his music loudly, like a bratty pre-teen who’s been told they’re not allowed to throw a party.

When everything is gone, all the liquor and his fury and his—just Cas, he’s back in the kitchen to take whatever alcohol is left. Might as well save himself the back-and-forth trips, he thinks, feeling clever for chucking all the beers and a bottle of whiskey into a plastic bag he finds lying around. He already knows how his day is going to go.

He feels homesick, but the kind where he knows his home has burned down. Again.

When Cas is back, Dean is drunk enough to be unashamedly waiting for him by the door like a spurned housewife.

He had managed to dodge Sam and Eileen up until they had called into his room that they’d be going out for dinner together. Sam had looked discomfited by the idea of leaving Dean alone, but of course, for this purpose, to be able to be left alone, Dean was able to plaster on a false smile and assure everyone that he’s just going to sleep it off.

He doesn’t do that.

What he does is drink a bit more, then trip and totter into the War Room where he’ll be able to see Cas as soon as he comes down the staircase.

Thankfully, Cas comes down the steps alone.

“Thank god you’re alone.” Dean throws his head back, sighs indulgently to himself.

Cas comes to stand before him in what seems like a rapid flash. Maybe he’s blacking out sporadically again.

“Excuse me?” Cas asks, hesitant.

“Thought you’d bring your date back.”

“Why would I do that?” Cas says with genuine interest. “The bunker is a classified space. Do you bring random women back here?”

“So it’s a woman then?” Dean tries to goad him into spilling. Dean doesn’t know why he cares. It hurts both ways, but if it’s a guy, for an unfathomable reason to him, it aches more.

Cas huffs, glancing sideaways, expression disgruntled. “It hardly matters what gender they are.”

“You’re going to date someone and you don’t even care what parts they’ve got down there?” he asks accusatorially.

“I partook in one date. Not dating. It’s one evening where the partner I shared my meal with didn’t throw spiteful remarks at me and look at me with resentment.”

“Ouch. That was catty, Cas,” he taunts, choosing to grin at him to mask the simmering despondence.

“So,” Dean continues, just as Cas is about to turn and leave, “did you fuck ‘em too? Getting around these days, Cas, I gotta say.”

The comment serves its purpose. Cas’ steps falter and he spins around to give Dean the dirtiest glare Dean’s ever seen on him, so incensed and shaken. It’s something. He’s at least not leaving.

“I didn’t do that with anyone. I went on one date. You suggested I moved on from you. You suggested that I, as you phrased, get the fuck over it,” Cas snarls, pacing towards where Dean is slouched in his chair. He leans forward with threat in his face, so unlike the strange but tender Cas that is Dean’s—and much more like Castiel, the strong, thunderous, commanding angel Dean first stabbed in the barn.

It was a lot easier when they were hurting each other physically. Stabbing with knives and angel blades, over looks and words and actions lashed out in anger.

When Castiel hisses in Dean’s face, “so I went on a date and I got the fuck over it,” Dean recoils so hard his chair tumbles a little on their feet.

Dean also almost vomits right there and then from the emotional gut punch—or maybe it’s the alcohol. Probably both.

“Where did you even meet them?” he manages to slur, trying to come off casual and instead sounding incredibly spiteful and hurt. He’s always being spiteful to Castiel.

He’s also finally getting some back.

“Again, I don’t see how it’s any of your business,” Castiel says crossly, having returned to his walk back away from Dean, towards the steps, towards his room probably, anywhere but where Dean is, “but it’s a hunter Sam knows.”

Dean leaves his seat in one quick swoop upwards, falling onto the table with one palm to steady himself. 

“Sam set you up?” Dean demands, outraged. His fury at his brother spikes. Why the fuck would Sam do that?

“Because I asked him to,” Castiel replies evenly. Dean didn’t even realise he’s talking aloud. God, he’s so drunk.

“Yes, you are,” Castiel says. “You should go to sleep.”

“But you—you’re—no,” Dean protests, “I want to stay here with you. Talk some more.”

Castiel frowns. “We can talk in the morning, Dean.”

“No—I—now. Wanna talk now. I don’t believe you. You’re not over it.” Dean’s getting really close to the angel now, so close and falling over his feet so much that Castiel—Cas has his arms outstretched, ready to catch Dean. Dean considers lurching forward on purpose.

“You’re a liar,” he drawls, slurring worse now that he’s standing. His brain catches up to just how well and truly stewed in alcohol his body is. “You’re a fucking liar and you know it. You love me!” he shouts, steadfast in his conviction. He probably won't be so sure in the morning, but for now, he plows on because he can't accept anything else. “You can’t just—you can’t just stop that easily," he blathers on. It's more an argument with himself now, battling the part of his brain that's reminding him of all the reasons Cas should and probably has moved on.

"You can’t—I—you’re not even going to give me time? I just—I just need some time, man. If you loved me, you’d—Cas…” He slumps forward. He doesn’t even mean to.

Cas settles him, holds his shoulders, and helps him slide down the wall beside them. Cas crouches to the floor with Dean and holds onto one side of his cheek with a warm and soothing palm. It's a bit callused. Like Dean's. They match sometimes. He tries to fumble for Cas' other hand with his, trying to see if they can touch palms like in that Tarzan movie. He watched it once as a teenager with some girl from his class he was trying to sleep with.

He thinks of how nice it would be to lay in bed and watch a movie with Cas. How nice everything with Cas is when they're not fighting.

And even when they're fighting, Cas is there for Dean. Amongst all the vitriol, amongst all the pressure and strain, Cas always returns so quickly, from angel of the Lord with a duty to Dean's one and only friend.

Dean smiles, eyes falling shut. “We’ve gotta stop meeting like this,” he jokes, then burps loudly.

Cas chuckles. “Yes, I suppose we do. You don’t generally speak so honestly to me unless one of us can forget the next day.”

“I’m a fucking coward,” Dean admits. “I don’t—I can’t deal with this shit. Guns, I can shoot. Monsters, I can kill. Hell, even hell I can endure.” He waves a hand between them, “but this, us. I don’t know how to—I’ve never had to do…something like this. I don’t know how. I’ve never been told. Dad would fucking kill me,” he chortles, then with much effort, blinks his eyes open slowly so he can look at Cas.

He’s pretty. Like girls are, like guys can be sometimes. Dean sometimes thinks—knows—he wouldn’t care what body Cas was in, as long as it’s Cas in there. It would have just been a lot easier if he had been a girl. Something dad did give him talks about. Something he has experienced and understood.

“Just—time,” he groans, struggling to keep his head upright. “I want to get better. At least in this if I can’t take back all the killing, the disappointment, the failures. I don’t want to feel like this anymore. I want to—I want more than this. With you. I need time. Please.”

“Dean,” Cas says gently, “You always have time. Until you take your last breath, you have time to do anything. And me, you know I do…everything for you. I can wait, I can help, I’ve fallen, I’ve rebelled—”

“And you did it all for me,” Dean murmurs, smiling again. Cas can make him smile so easily when Dean lets it happen.

“But I can’t fix the knots in your soul,” Cas continues regretfully, “I wish I could, but all I can do is be here and lend you my hand through the trek. I realise now that your heart is not mine to seize or to mend. Your heart is yours and you need to look after it the way you need to take your own showers, brush your own teeth, and chew your own food. I’ll always do anything for you, Dean, but in order for that to be sustainable, I can’t do everything for you—and I…I need to care for myself before I can care for you too.”

“Cas,” Dean cries, "I think I’m gonna be sick.”

“I think you’ve not been listening,” Cas whispers, like it’s to himself. He sighs. “If you’ll let me, we can speak tomorrow. You need to either empty your stomach of the poison you’ve consumed or at least let me take you somewhere to sleep this off.”

Dean nods quickly, jerking his chin up and down with vigour. “Yeah. Wanna talk. Always wanna talk with you, Cas. Sleep, then talk.”

Cas is smiling at him, but it is too sympathetic, too awash with forlornness. Dean thinks maybe he can kiss that away, so without thinking too much about it, he sweeps in to press their lips together.

He catches Cas’ cheek instead, because Cas turns, just as quickly as Dean fell forwards.

It’s still gratifying. It’s still pretty damn marvellous actually. He can’t think of a time where his lips had ever grazed against stubble before, but it feels…good.

Cas is pulling back much too soon, staring open-mouthed at Dean. He looks either astounded or petrified. Both?

Dean grumbles his disappointment. He realises with even more distress that he didn’t even get to kiss Cas properly.

“Dean.” His name always falls so prettily off Cas’ lips. Pillowed lips he’d wanted to brush his to. His name sounds so cradled coming from them, said so carefully, with purpose and with reverence. 

“Dean,” Cas repeats, voice trembling. “I need you to put your arm around me. I’m getting you into bed. By yourself.” Dean smirks as Cas blushes and glances away. “Come on.”

His arm barely feels attached to his body anymore when it’s looped around Cas, and he’s being hauled upwards then forwards. They’re going to his room, he supposes.

“Why wouldn’t ya kiss me?” he mumbles, hurt and confused. “I thought we—you know…”

“You are tremendously drunk,” Castiel says quietly, “I’m not going to take advantage of you in this state, and I believe that even if I let something like that happen, I would get punched the moment you became sober again.” Dean catches a glimpse of Cas from the side and sees him looking wry with amusement. “Seeing as I’m now pretty much human, I’m assuming that punch would hurt.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” Dean insists, eyes fluttering, sticking from the dampness of faint tears. “You really think I would do that? Fuck, have I really been that awful to you?” He presses one hand to Cas’ chest and grips his shirt into a fist.

“No,” Dean laughs before Cas can reply. “Don’t answer that. I know the answer. I’ve been kicking at you like some evil son of a bitch with a puppy. You’re cuter than a fucking puppy and I’ve just been—you’re a fucking angel. You shouldn’t be hanging around people like me, never mind letting yourself get…get abused like this. Just—drop me here. On the floor. Here. I don’t deserve a goddamn bed."

“Dean,” and there it is again. He could listen to Cas say his name as he drifts off into death, and he would still be happy for it. “Dean, I didn’t let you kiss me because if…if you do feel that way about me back, I would like you to accept yourself for it first.”

Dean’s in bed now, shoved under the covers just had he done for Cas a couple of days back. He didn’t even notice quick enough to protest and demand the floor instead.

“Goodnight, Dean. I hope we can speak tomorrow.”

Before he lets himself fall into a fast and effortless slumber, Dean pleads with himself to remember. To please let himself be brave enough to talk to Cas tomorrow.

The one benefit of being a functional problematic-drinker, for Dean, is that his morning-afters mostly consist of weakness, fatigue, and thirst. Not so much memory loss.

He remembers and, shit, what an assault the recollections had been to his fragile grip on heterosexuality. He swears at least a dozen different profanities, carping to himself like a crazy person, in his hungover stroll towards the kitchen.

He tugs on the end strands of his hair. The shallow, artificial pain does nothing to numb his horror.

The endearment in his interaction with Cas creeps in slowly through the bawling panic, somewhere in between his sixth glass of quickly downed water and a quavering hand that reaches for his first beer.

He leaves the beer. Shuts the fridge door with a firm slam.

He wanted to kiss Cas. Okay. Let’s start with that first.

He’s responsible for that. Responsibilities, that’s something Dean can handle. He’s been responsible for Sammy for years. Arguably, he’s taken responsibility for the world’s existence against Gods and monsters too.

Now he’s also responsible for what he did last night—what he tried to do.

He wanted to kiss Cas. He tried to kiss Cas. He…wants Cas.

Not only that way—though he’s starting to allow himself to want that more fully too—but what he wants most is the friendship back, the mutual affection, and their selfless vows to one another. He wants everything their bond was as well as any more intimacies he can share with Cas.

He’d like to be able to reach out and fluff Cas’ hair, hug his waist, kiss his cheek in the difficult mornings they’re all going to have to face.

He wants them to wash dishes together, shoulders touching, and lie in bed while they talk about their shitty days. Maybe their days will be less shitty if they’re together.

Shit, it’s so domestic that he reels from it, the mundanity of his desires.

“Dean?”

Cas. Oh, fuck, Cas. He needs more time.

He doesn’t have more time.

“Cas,” he says, and it’s like a breath of relief.

Cas is hanging in the doorway, meagre and modest as he stares mutely at his entwined hands. They’re good-looking hands, if Dean’s ever really thought about any pair; strong-looking, dusted only lightly with dark hairs, and so tanned, like the rest of him.

It’s like Dean is falling head-first down a water-slide. An unpredictable whirlwind that’s terrifying and exhilarating all at once. Once he knows he’s wanted to kiss Cas, probably has been wanting it for awhile, everything else tumbles out so insurmountably.

He’s gazing like a lovesick fool at Cas’ hands, up to his elfin ears, a little too small for his head, the wrinkles that are coming in with the grey hairs, the shoulders, the jaw, his stubble, his downcast eyes.

There’s no stopping it now, no brakes Dean can push down on. He’s so in love with this man.

“How are you feeling?”

“Fucking fantastic.”

Cas’ head flicks up. Their eyes meet, finally. “That doesn’t sound right.”

Dean puffs on an amused breath and stressfully works his fingers into fists, in and out. “Yeah, I guess not. I’m scared too, if that sounds saner. More like me. Really scared. Like I’m gonna throw up, but I’ve been feeling a lot of that lately so I guess it’s the new normal. Nauseous from my feelings for you and hangovers. Mostly you,” he rambles, bumping his hip into the table as he tries to cross it to get closer to Cas.

“Your…feelings for me?” Cas iterates cautiously. His mouth is wrenched down like he’s expecting a cruel taunt in return or an acidic remark.

Dean’s chest clenches with pain.

“Of course, my feelings for you,” Dean says as gently as he can. “I know I’ve been—vehement in denying anything between us…”

“Vehement. Is that your word of the day?” Cas tries to tease, tentative and quiet. One corner of his lips quirk though and it’s enough to launch Dean into grin.

“Shut up, assbutt,” he volleys back. “I’m not a total cave man.”

“Actuallty, the primitive men of the Palaeolithic era were rather advanced for the age of creation they inhibited, and they began quite impressive stone tool developments for—”

“Cas, for fuck’s sake—”

“And assbutt is my coinage.”

“We can share,” Dean says shyly. “Can’t we?”

“I’d share anything with you, Dean,” Cas says seriously, and they’re back to that impassioned piece of deep staring, the cheesy-ass Hallmark shit Sam doesn’t shut up about. Dean gets it now. There’s something very intimate about the way Cas looks at him, and in the way that Dean looks back until it gets too weird and he can’t anymore.

He doesn’t avert his eyes this time. “Cas, I’m sorry.”

It’s like a cavity that’s been rotting away inside of him falls out along with that one apology. Vanished away with some glorious kind of spellwork. Three words, and poof.

“Fuck,” he says with relief, “fuck, that feels good to say. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry for everything. Can you…” He’s got one foot held in alleviated pain and the other in terror. “Cas, please forgive me.”

Cas is swaying his head back and forth like he can’t understand what’s happening. There’s frown lines between his eyebrows, but his lips are also quivering like he’s either about to cry or smile.

Dean can take two steps and he’ll be close enough to envelop him. He’s sober now so maybe Cas will even let them kiss once some time has been devoted to clinging onto each other—for all the time that’s been lost to Dean’s stubborn and uncompromising will.

He’s one step in when Sam calls, far too cheerily, “I have waffles! Who’s hungry?”

“That bitch,” Dean complains, taking one step back.

Cas steps back too.

Their eyes still interlock, and something passes between them, something that feels like a promise of ‘later.’ A look, uncomplicated and in sync, much like the ones passed between Sam and Eileen that Dean had been so envious of.

Almost there, he thinks to himself, butterflies jumping at the smell of waffles and the smiles of Sammy, Eileen, and Cas.


	4. Slow, Steady

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coming around in circles, Dean and Castiel struggle to find their footing.
> 
> Eventually, they decide it's better to fall together than apart.

For all their falsified detective work, the investigative hunting, the constant vigilance against a world full or horrors and hazard, Sam Winchester is really an unobservant little shit today.

Eileen—sweet, amazing, clever Eileen, who can definitely do better than Dean’s oblivious friggin’ bigfoot brother—is more sharp-eyed and helpful. She nudges Sam a couple of times, about ten minutes after breakfast, and attempts to hassle him into joining her in the library for research.

She glances between Dean and Cas, offering an apologetic smile every time Sam waves a hand and says it’s nice for everyone to be sitting together for once.

They can research later. Hey, let’s watch TV or something. Oh, I know. We could play a board game. Monopoly? Unwind for a bit, yeah?

It’s obvious Sam is trying to occupy Dean. Surround him with people so he’s not drinking by himself, not wallowing in self-pity, not shutting himself out to be alone.

The problem is Dean needs to be alone with Cas right now.

It goes on like this for the next hour, with Dean and Cas wedged next to each other on a too-small couch, shifting on their bottoms awkwardly as Sam bumbles around the room, cleaning up Jenga pieces they’ve abandoned on the floor, burning their popcorn twice, and setting up a movie Dean supposes they’re all going to watch together now.

Eileen wrings her hands, keeps trying to catch Sam’s eyes.

Dean grinds his teeth and taps his foot, infuriated.

Cas is swallowing his nerves next to Dean, and Dean watches closely to the way his throat bobs.

It’s quite distracting. He doesn’t hear his name being called until Eileen touches his forearm gently and tilts her head in direction of Sam.

“Dean? You okay?”

“Fine,” Dean croaks.

“You’re sweating,” Sam says with furrowed brows and concern, “and—and staring at Cas like—” His words drop off sharply.

His eyes wander towards Eileen, who’s stood up and is now pulling a face at Sam, and something like understanding seems to punch into Sam’s brain. Finally.

Dean watches as Sam’s mouth parts slightly and his cheeks brighten in colour and he nods—with poorly concealed subtlety—at Eileen. Sam then turns to Dean with a look that resembles a moose caught in headlights.

“I think I need to—um—use the…bathroom?” Sam says.

“Are you asking me or telling me?” Dean responds archly.

“No, I—” he purses his lips. “I need to…shower. I feel grimy from being outside. Then I need to get some reading done. Completely forgot. Sorry.” His tone is stilted, his words artificial, as if he’s plucking them blindly from the air. “Raincheck? We can watch the movie tonight instead.”

“Yes,” Dean and Cas reply together too quickly, too synchronously.

“Good. Awesome. Okay. I’m just going to—” he points in the opposite direction of where he’s meaning to go. “Going now. Bye.”

Eileen sighs with a modicum of exasperation but also relief.

She moves to follow Sam, departing with a kind smile at Dean and Cas. She also leaves the room silently, without the fiddly explanations and awkwardness.

Though Eileen has moved from the couch, leaving room for Cas and Dean to stretch out, they remain shoulders pressing for awhile after.

It’s quiet until one of them is brave enough to break it.

Of course, that person is Cas.

“Dean,” he starts with, and it’s a good start. It’s familiar, it’s warm, it’s embracing. The tension leaves Dean’s shoulders.

He moves away slightly only so he can see Cas’ face more clearly. “Yeah?”

“I’m not over it.”

Some kind of wall perishes inside Dean with those words.

It’s been chipping away for many, many, many years. It’s been crumbling quicker since last night, and tumbling to almost nothing this morning.

It’s not entirely nothing yet. There’s dust from the wreckage and some anxiety-ridden fragments splayed across the floor of Dean’s mind, but at least there’s no wall now.

He can see through the barrier and know with the same certainty he’s known all his life about his attraction to women, that he loves Cas and wants to kiss him. It feels okay now, so he smiles with the most relief he’s felt in a long time and drifts his face towards Cas.

It’s his hands which cup Cas’ cheeks first, gentle and reassuring, perhaps a little questioning too.

With no protest from Cas, but only a starstruck and awed expression, Dean surges forwards so their lips could meet.

They both sigh at the contact, breathing into each others’ mouths.

It’s the most innocent kiss he’s had since his first as a boy. He supposes it almost is like a first kiss. His first with someone he’s not allowed himself to want before, someone he didn’t realise he was allowed to have.

It’s both strangely the same as kissing a girl, in that he doesn’t feel like he’s doing anything wrong.

It’s also entirely different because Cas’ jaw is strong in his hands, and his nose, larger than most girls’, pokes into Dean’s cheek more significantly, letting him know that he’s definitely there. There’s a fine scratch of stubble too, surprisingly pleasurable.

The weightiest difference is that he’s pretty sure he’s never kissed anyone he’s been this in love with.

The joy from it glows brighter in his chest than any other kiss. It’s pretty surreal, pretty wonderful, and he forgets everything else that isn’t Cas’ quiet hum of pleasure against his lips.

There’s so much more intimacy for him and Cas to come, and the thought enthuses Dean so much that it bleeds into their kiss. The shy brush, tug, press, and pull of lips, turns into tongues sweeping into mouths and moans that escalate into Dean somehow falling into Cas’ lap.

His hand presses into Dean’s chest, that same spot he pressed by the stairs that day, right where Dean’s heart is.

The pressure on his chest increases. Dean almost cries in displeasure, maybe he does, when Cas parts their lips with a loud, wet smack and lifts Dean off him.

They both fall into the couch, panting, catching their heavy breaths.

Dean squirms, and when he can find his voice, he gasps, “what the fuck, Cas?”

“I apologise,” Cas replies, his voice still wheezing but ever so contrite. “That got out of hand.”

“Ugh,” Dean grunts, “no, dipshit,” he continues, frustrated. “I meant, why did you stop?”

“Oh,” Cas says, and Dean curves his neck to look at him where—shit, Cas is pretty, but also so handsome, with flushed cheeks and moist lips. He also sees that Cas is blinking owlishly at him, as if in confusion.

“Dean, have you ever kissed a man before?” he asks softly.

Dean balks. “No. Of course not.”

“And you realise that my vessel is…male—”

“Your body,” Dean corrects, on auto-pilot.

“Fine, my body is male. You also have denied being…homosexual many times, you’ve never kissed a man until me—”

“I’m probably bi, man,” he mumbles, and it feels uncomfortable, strange, but also pretty gut-punch awesome satisfying to say—well, mumble beneath his breath.

He’s so caught up in his anxious thoughts that Cas’ hand falling on his startles him.  
When he squeezes, Dean looks up to see careful blue eyes gauging him with the same cautious adoration Cas has always offered him.

He smiles back to Cas’ smile, though both of theirs are trembling.

“I believe it would be a good idea for us to take things slow. Particularly when these are such…unfamiliar waters for you,” he says gently. “I don’t want to shock you into…recoiling from me. From us.”

Dean sighs, rubs his eyes with his free hand. The other remains tightly gripped onto Cas’.

He’s holding a guy’s hand. He’s fully made out with a guy—practically crawled into his lap like some wanton girl.

He’s also kissed Cas though. He’s kissed the love of his life and they were clinging onto each other so closely. He can have that for as long as they manage to stay alive. That fantastic feeling that’s better than flying.

Dean tries to steady his breathing.

“Take things slow,” Dean echoes after a minute, scoffing but with no heat, trying to loosen the strain in the air, “where did you learn that from? You been watching those shit soaps again on TV?”

Cas harrumphs. “I like them,” he asserts, then grumpily pulls Dean’s hand onto his lap to cover it completely with his other hand.

Fuck, it’s so nice.

Dean crosses his legs, leans his head back to where Cas has tipped his own to rest on the couch.

His eyes have fluttered shut with a contented exhale so Dean takes the opportunity to drink in Cas, up close. They’ve often been close, too close, personal space too often forgotten even after their exchange in the bathroom where Dean explicitly warned Cas against it.

They’ve been this close perhaps a handful of times. Dean’s never felt allowed to watch for too long. He does now.

With a courage he commends himself quite smugly for, he advances closer still and skims his nose down Cas’ cheek, finally coming to kiss him soundly at the corner of his mouth.

Cas eyes peek open and the way he beams at Dean makes him forget why he’s not ever done that before. Why he was hesitant to do it in the first place.

He sways forwards a second time and catches Cas’ lips between his.

He savours the feel before retreating back.

Cas smiles like he’s drunk now. Dean understands. His brain feels soapy and mushy, caught in the haziest fog of roses and fantasies come true.

“Slow,” Dean repeats to both himself and Cas, nodding resolutely.

“As they say, slow and stable motions do end up triumphing in running competitions,” Cas says airily, falling back to the couch with closed eyes again.

“That’s not—” Dean stops himself short and rolls his eyes instead. He settles into Cas’ side, plucks his hand from Cas’, and uses that arm to wind around Cas’ shoulders instead.

Cas doesn’t seem to mind. He inches his head sideways and noses at Dean’s neck.

He shivers, and it takes a few minutes for his heart to gentle its roar inside his chest. He takes a few deep breaths, slow and steady.

Dean falls into their strange domesticated nap like he fell for Cas, slow and steady.

Castiel wakes first, wiping at the drool on his cheek that is definitely not his.

He watches Dean, asleep with his mouth hanging open, and a burst of fondness follows. It strengthens as he looks at the saliva his thumb had gathered off his own cheek.

Saliva that’s come from Dean’s mouth, which had been on Castiel's, their lips and tongues exploring one another’s. He fretted as he stirred to consciousness that it had all been a vivid dream, borne of fantasy, and yet Dean is still here, holding Castiel to his own body like he’s afraid to let go.

A thrill hits his stomach, serrated and thrashing. He wonders if this is what humans talked about when they compare joyous stomach troubles to that of the flutter of butterflies.

It feels like that but if the butterflies had razors for wings. It feels like jubilation but also alarm because now that he has the human he loves wrapped around him, he could also lose him at any moment.

This thing with Dean, it’s…unstable, certainly.

He can envisage, at any moment, Dean Winchester chasing him out the door and chasing the memories of their intimacies away with a fifth of vodka. Knowing Dean, likely the entire bottle.

“Hey,” rasps a drowsy voice. They have switched positions. Dean somehow is now rested on Castiel’s chest and Castiel’s head rests atop’s Dean.

Castiel glances down to see Dean pushing himself upwards by Castiel’s thighs, smacking his lips together like his maw is sticky.

Dean grumbles, “cotton mouth.” He has a cantankerous expression on him that vanishes instantly when his eyes lock onto Castiel’s bewildered ones. Everything brightens when Dean grins sloppily at him.

“Sorry, not such a happy sleeper.”

“Yes,” Castiel agrees dazedly, “angry, like a bear.”

Dean snorts. “You have a catalogue of my habits in that weird little brain of yours, don’t you?”

“I know you almost as well as you know yourself, Dean.” Perhaps that was a little too eager. He reels back. “Of course, it isn’t difficult for any creature within close distance to recognise your…prickliness as you wake.”

“What time is it?” Dean asks, sounding crabbed once more. "Did we really just fucking nap through the day?”

“It is…” Castiel peers at the grandfather clock installed towards the room’s corner. “Almost seven in the evening.”

“Holy shit,” Dean laughs suddenly, taking Castiel aback. “Man, I haven’t slept for that long or that well—in—well…years.” He peeks at Castiel, eyes blurred from sleep and soft all the same. “Maybe you’re a good sleep aid. Nice—er…cuddle buddy or whatever.”

Castiel lets the butterflies turn soft in his belly. “Thank you, Dean. It has been nice cuddling you as well.”

“Whoa.” Dean’s laughter becomes fraught with discomfort. “We—er—we didn’t, you know, exactly…”

Castiel’s frustration briefly overleaps his caution with Dean’s troubled sexuality.

“We have been kissing rather vigorously, with tongue, as well as holding hands. You, Dean, have also attempted to grind into my lap, touch me sexually, then proceeded to complain when I stopped you—and you now have a problem with us cuddling because, let me guess, we are two men?” Castiel sighs in a fit of pique. “You can be very dense, sometimes.”

The friction in the air is suddenly thick, the space between them immensely frigid.

Castiel hasn’t felt this ill since his hangover.

He focuses on the forward ticking of the clock’s hand to steady himself.

He understands their budding relations are likely over now, but what’s worse is he let himself spill his vexation onto Dean, again. He doesn’t want to embrace this side of being human, the emotional destruction to one another, the flaring of tempers that burn only themselves.

“I’m sorry,” Castiel says, but there’s an echo. It’s Dean’s voice.

Dean is visibly confused. Castiel is sure it reflects on his own face.

“What are you sorry for?” They both say together again, in tandem.

Dean laughs. “I don’t get what the fuck is going on.”

“I shouldn’t have said what I said,” Castiel says mournfully, “I shouldn’t be pressing you with your…difficulties. I shouldn’t be insulting your intelligence either. I’m just…frustrated—“

“Understandably,” Dean nods, sheepish.

“No—well, yes, I believe I am allowed to feel my feelings too, but I also shouldn’t let that be turned into acidity against you.”

Dean’s expression turns dark. “Like what I’ve been doing to you,” he chuckles without humour.

“Dean,” Casiel tries, seeing the pain and feeling sympathetic.

“I think this is just a shitty situation,” Dean continues with a tired exhale. He also slumps forwards. “It’s not easy for me, or for you, and I get—I get why you can’t help but be annoyed with me. I’m a pretty shitty person, with a pretty shitty temper. You’ve not said or done anything to me that amounts to even half of what I have to you, so don’t you dare be the one to start apologising.”

“Dean,” Castiel says with more force, and it’s enough for Dean to shift his eyes upwards and face Castiel. “You are not a shitty person.”

“Hah,” he mutters in return.

“You’ve had a…shitty life. A shitty time, especially for the past decade or so. Fifty, if we’re counting hell, which I think we definitely should. Being treated like that, going through all of that, can make a person act shitty sometimes, but it doesn’t make you a shitty person.”

Dean casts this abashed look sideways, like he doesn’t want to believe Castiel but like Castiel sounds unassailable enough in his conviction that Dean has to at least consider the truth to it.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say the word shitty so much in my life, Cas,” Dean says with a wry smirk to himself.

“Well,” Castiel huffs, “I think it may have been easier to get through to you if I were to participate in your favourite vernaculars.”

“I am sorry,” Dean says quietly, “for earlier. For…being weird about cuddling.”

“It’s alright,” Castiel says, his fervour lightening into a softness for Dean. “I’m sorry too for my reaction, and…thank you. Thank you for apologising.”

“I hope I don’t have to do a lot more of that,” Dean says, half-amused, half-chastened. “Though I probably should have been doing a lot more of it in the past—or just, you know, not…fucking up things with you in the first place.”

Castiel pats his hand reassuringly. “I have…fucked up a lot too. We all seem to have a habit of doing so, but all we can do now is strive to stop…or lessen it, at least. For what it’s worth, I appreciate the apology and I, of course, forgive you.”

Dean flips his hand so they can entwine their fingers.

“Cas, you know I—I…” Dean bites his lips and his shoulders quiver with some kind of restraint. “Cas, I…I really…fuck.” He tightens his hold of their hands and says, eyes squeezed shut, “just give me a second.”

The second never arrives.

Instead, Dean’s stomach grumbles, he can’t say it, and Cas suggests they visit a diner as Sam and Eileen are still likely hiding out, avoiding Dean and Cas, waiting for them to sort their shit out.

The drive is…really fucking pleasant.

Cas has the window rolled down and Dean has to snap at him to not stick his head out like some fucking dog, to remind him that he’s human now and he could get decapitated or some shit if a truck were to drive by really fast.

Cas consents to Dean’s request, but does so while laughing at the ridiculous idea.

He teases Dean about being overprotective and Dean turns tomato red.

They sing along to Dean’s mixtape, the one Cas apparently carries in his trench-coat pocket, a revelation that makes Dean turn even darker red—probably the shade of a beetroot now.

At some point, their hands find each other’s again. Dean has one on the steering wheel and another tucked in Cas’.

When they park, he lets go and Cas actively distances himself again as they walk side by side in public. It’s both a relief that Cas understands and gut-wrenching that Dean still needs this.

It’s a perky young brunette waitress that serves them—she has a fringe, looks a little bit like Hannah had in her first vessel, with the blue eyes and the slim figure.

Dean starts feeling itchy in abstract places that he can’t mentally scratch.

He knows something happened with Hannah and Cas. Was it because of Hannah the angel? Or was Cas attracted to pretty brunettes with blue eyes, ones that he could hold hands with in public and have them not balk at the idea of cuddling?

Cas is polite. As always. A little too polite, if you ask Dean. He smiles at her too much, and when she smiles back flirtatiously and says he has a cute smile, he thanks her.

Then he goes ahead and orders for them both like they’re a fucking couple—two double cheeseburgers with fries, and a slice of pie, with a chocolate milkshake.

Her smile drops as she looks between them, but only for a second, and she asks if they want two straws with that milkshake.

“No, thank you,” Cas replies, the same time that Dean hits her with a resounding and cold, “yes, please.”

Cas tilts in his head and frowns at Dean in question.

Dean responds with the winning Dean Winchester grin, lascivious and charming, directed only at Cas but more for the benefit of the waitress.

He only sulks back into his seat, moody and arms crossed, once she leaves.

“Dean? What just happened there?”

“You tell me,” Dean retorts, eyes narrowed.

“Well…” Castiel puts on a ponderous face, and Dean thinks, un-fucking-believable, “I ordered a milkshake for myself and I assume that…you want to share? I could have just ordered us two. I didn’t know you liked chocolate milkshakes. Are you upset that I only ordered one?”

“I’m not upset,” Dean says in his most casual voice, shrugging, “but if I were to be, it might have something to do with that waitress flirting with you and you thanking her for it. I dunno. Just a thought. Bit weird to let someone flirt with you while you’re on a date.”

“Is this what this is? A date?” Cas asks, eyes widened in disbelief.

Dean tenses.

“I guess not,” he quickly says. “I guess a diner’s a shit place for a first date.” He feels all sorts of stupid and ridiculous, acting like a jealous teenage boy over some harmless flirtation that Cas didn’t even actually respond to.

“It’s just annoying,” Dean rambles, moving forwards across the table to hiss under his breath, “why would she do that? Couldn’t she see that we’re—you know…and even if we weren’t its kind of rude to just…just hit on someone like that when they’re with—shit—you know—a friend or…or whatever.”

Shit, this is just getting worse by the second. Dean wishes he hadn’t reacted to any of this in any way shape or form, because now Cas is observing him with a mixture of curiosity and amusement.

“Dean, this was the same waitress you once offered we, as you say, tag-teamed. Do you not remember? Why are you suddenly upset now about her being flirtatious?”

Oh, Cas damn well knows the answer to that question. Smug bastard.

Dean glares at him and pointedly looks away until their food arrives.

He proceeds to chew at his burger and fries ravenously, attacking it angrily like it had done something to him in his past life. Cas sits opposite him quietly, peacefully, sipping occasionally at his milkshake and humming to himself with pleasure each time.

It’s a real relaxing noise, and Dean resents it for the fact that it calms him somewhat. Then he resents himself for trying to hold onto his temper.

He reaches forwards for the milkshake, and without saying anything, takes Cas’ straw into his mouth and sucks. It’s okay. He prefers pie.

Pettily, unable to help himself, he gives the waitress a saccharine smile as she walks pasts and asks her to throw away the other straw for him.

“I don’t want it getting wet on our table, and turns out we don’t need it. We don’t mind sharing,” he explains with false cheer.

She smiles back tightly and takes the straw from him.

Cas laughs under his breath. “Well, that was unnecessary.”

Dean drinks some more of the milkshake. It’s growing on him, and he stops only when there’s less than half left so he can pass the rest to Cas.

They order another to takeaway as Cas leaves a pretty generous tip.

“She’ll only get the wrong idea,” Dean argues.

“I think she gets the idea, Dean,” Cas replies, amused.

They hold hands on their way back to the car. Dean’s so grumpy that he doesn’t notice until he has to unleash Cas in search of his car keys.

They’re cuddling on the couch when Sam enters, holding a bowl of cereal and munching on its contents merrily. He stops when he sees them.

“Cereal at midnight? You a shifter? What happened to my hippie health junkie brother?” Dean mocks, then realises his own compromising and very mockable position.

Dean considers wrenching away from Cas. Instead, he run a hand down Cas’ arm, the one looped around him, and raises his eyebrows as if daring Sam to say something shitty. Obviously, he doesn’t.

He settles on the armchair beside them, after observing the two interestedly for only a few seconds.

Then he sighs and kicks at the leg of a table.

“Eileen’s gone to see her hunter friend for a couple of days. Helping out on a case. I should have just gone with her. I miss her.”

“Wait, are you drunk?” Dean asks, lifting himself up from his reclined position against Cas.

Sam giggles to himself. “I guess, yeah. Yeah. A bit. Not let loose in awhile. Always worried about your glum ass.” He eyes Dean, then Cas, then grins stupidly. “Guess I don’t have to worry about that anymore, huh? You two look nice and cosy.”

Dean blushes, so does Cas, from what he can see out of the corner of his eye.

“Should I tell that hunter guy to piss off then? Now that you’ve found your one true love and everything,” Sam says, loopy. “You must’a had a good date. Dude won’t shut up about you. Says you’re a right great kisser, so, good for Dean, right?” He grins.

Dean freezes.

“Shit,” Sam blinks, and he looks like something cleared in his brain as he sits up a bit straighter. “Shit, sorry. I didn’t mean—um. Look, man, I’m just a bit tipsy right now.” He says to Dean.

“I should…go.” He looks at Cas apologetically once before stumbling out the room.

He left his cereal bowl, Dean thinks numbly, then asks Cas without thinking or looking at him, “you’re still talking to that guy?”

“Dean. No,” Cas says seriously.

“Why’s Sam bringing it up?”

“Because he’s drunk, Dean, and that’s not even what he said. Of course I’m not talking to him. I’m not…talking to anyone but you. In that way.” Cas sighs, unwinds from Dean who misses the contact instantly but also starts to feel cold and resentful.

“You kissed him though,” Dean finds himself saying.

“Yes. It was a date. We kissed at the end of it.”

There’s a rolling sickness sweeping through Dean’s body. “Well, that’s fucking fantastic.”

“How many women have you paraded around me over the years?” Cas asks firmly. “How many have I had to watch you drool over and touch and kiss? Even Anna—”

“Oh, please, that was a decade ago—”

“If you hadn’t been so stubborn, so irrefutable in your—”

“And what about Meg—”

“How is that even remotely—”

Everything spirals again.

They’re rowing like an old married couple before their relationship’s even really begun.

It’s all back to sourness, and Dean’s being sharply reminded once more how much crap there is between them that is unresolved. Mom comes up. Then Jack, then the Empty, then Dean’s terrible words flung carelessly at Cas, then even the Leviathans.

“Did we really ever establish boundaries?” Dean asks. “What the fuck are we? Are we just gonna fuck and that’ll be it?”

Cas pales. Dean, again, feels disgusted with himself. He has to cover his face with his hands, press down on his eyeballs so they don’t water.

“I love you. You know this,” Cas says quietly.

Everything’s quieter now.

“You have feelings for me,” Dean says pitifully, "you love me platonically, sure, like you love Sammy, and maybe you’re attracted to me and that’s why you mash the two together and it equals as that kind of love in your head—”

“Do not patronise me or my feelings. I know what I feel. Do you?” Castiel asks icily.

They’d been standing as they shouted at each other. It’s been horrible. Now, Dean falls against a wall to help keep him upright.

He’s so tired.

“Of course I do,” he says, mouth wobbling as he tries not crumble. “I just don’t see how this can ever be easy. We can’t keep ignoring everything buried between us and barrel on like a normal couple. Shit, until yesterday, I couldn’t even accept who I really am or how I really felt about you. I’m still struggling to completely—and now, we’re on day one and we’re already fighting, and I just, I—”

Cas nods, solemn, like he understands. There’s something scary about that.

“I think it’s best if I leave.”

Dean panics. Not again. In three steps, he has Cas’ face in his hands.

“No, no,” Dean says, desperate and begging. “Cas, no. We’re running around in circles here. Tell me what to do. Tell me how to fix this. I just want us to—“ he pauses and forces the words from his throat that doesn’t want to come, “be okay,” he manages.

It’s not what he wanted to say exactly.

Cas sighs. “We are okay, Dean. We both just need some time apart, to think about what we want and who we are, because you’re right. We’re going in circles.”

Dean can’t think of any excuse that is worth letting Cas go again. There’s no blockages now.

“I know who I am,” Dean insists, stepping forward, crowding Cas into the wall. “I might stumble sometimes, for a little bit, while I’m finding my footing on this, but I,” he reaches out to whisk a hand down Cas’ bicep, stroking. “I know what I want.”

He arches his head and kisses Cas, who responds immediately under his lips.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, to Cas only, next to Cas’ ear, because he’s done apologising to the world now. This is only for Cas.

He kisses his cheek adoringly and, with meaning, because he can finally give Cas this admission, he confesses, “I love you. I’m so in love with you. We’ll figure it out together.”

They collapse into each other, and Dean plants one more kiss onto Cas before they weave into an embrace. Dean’s fingers tangle and strokes through Cas’ hair as Cas grips the back of Dean’s shoulders, burying his face under Dean’s jaw.

“You shouldn’t be anywhere but here,” Dean murmurs, “we could die tomorrow and we should hold onto as much time as we can get here, with everyone that we love.”

He can’t say it directly again, not yet. He’s not even said as much to Sammy or mom in years, his father at all, but Cas knows now, and maybe he can say it again soon.

“We’ll make it through together,” Dean assures them both, voice quavering but determined, “we’re going to get through this, and I’m going to get through this, and I’m going to—to heal myself this time. No more angel mojo. No more crutches. You can’t heal me this time ‘round, so can you just—er—stick around, you know, while I try to myself?”

“Of course,” Cas answers, nodding and Dean can see his eyes are bloodshot, “I am always devoted to you.”

Dean’s head drops forward onto Cas’ shoulder. They’re still holding onto each other.

“I’m sorry again, for, you know...” he mumbles, blinking away at tears, “being a dick. All the shitty things I said to you. How I lash out when I feel...not...wanted. I’m just shitty at feelings. It’s not you. You know that, right?”

“It’s not you, it’s me?” Cas asks, amused, lifting away to cock his head at Dean. “Have you been watching more of your shitty soaps on that TV, Dean?”

“It’s a common expression, because it’s commonly true, and I don’t even watch Dr. Sexy anymore,” Dean says defensively, crossing his arms.

Cas is smirking at him.

“Oh, shut your face.”

“I didn’t say anything,” he says, still smirking.

“You’re so annoying, you know that?” He shoves one hand at Cas’ chest, who bounds backwards and stumbles on his feet with mock horror.

“Dean, I am human now. You need to be more careful with me,” he teases.

“Some human, you are,” Dean scoffs, though his tone is light and playful, “you can’t even make a pot of coffee without burning the kitchen down.”

“I burned the pot, not the kitchen,” Cas retorts, “and at least I‘ve been stocking our fridge up with more than three items per monthly. I also am an excellent cook now that I have practiced,” he sniffs.

“Maybe cook something for me sometime then, eh? Stick around and make me some of that...weird french pancake thing I smell every morning.”

“It’s called a crêpe, Dean.”

“Aw, Cas, I’m sure your cooking isn’t crap.”

“I said crêpe,” he enunciates with more force this time, face flushing with frustration. It lets Dean know he’s starting to get to him.

It’s cute. He loves teasing Cas, especially when he’s human enough to react so vividly.

“Perhaps I will just feed you crap,” Cas continues crossly, jutting his lip out at Dean like a stroppy kid.

“Oh, Cas, you wound me,” Dean belly-laughs, “I can’t believe an angel like you would do that to his own boyfriend.”

A beat of silence follows where all Cas does is stare back at him with a blank expression.

A horrifying thought strikes Dean and he is suddenly overcome with an irrational and paralysing fear that he’s misunderstood everything.

Then Cas’ mouth twitches, and soon it morphs into a shy smile.

“I can’t believe you’d think a rebel angel like me wouldn’t do that to my own boyfriend,” he eventually says, blushing. “Especially when they can be as troublesome as you are.”

Dean’s sure his grin is bright enough to light a darkened forest.

“Asshole,” he slings at Cas playfully, reaching to hold his waist, pull him forwards, and peck him on the lips.

It feels normal now. More normal. Hopefully more and more the more that Dean does it. Comfortable. Nice.

“Assbutt,” Cas mumbles back against Dean’s smiling lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to all my readers, all the commenters, and everyone that's left a kudos or has given this story a chance! I really enjoyed writing it and am a little sad it's over.
> 
> I'm thinking of perhaps adding a chapter as a second series to this, having a look at Dean and Cas later on in life - a snapshot, somewhat, of their future where their relationship is more established and Dean has come to accept himself more fully. I probably won't be able to help myself, so let me know if anyone would be interested in some kind of work like that :)
> 
> Thank you so much again! This has been a really fun and fulfilling experience for me.


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